James Kirkup is The Telegraph's Executive Editor (Politics). He was previously the Telegraph's Political Editor and has worked at Westminster since 2001.

Chris Huhne's remarkable self-confidence: you may think his career is over. He won't

Politics is a confidence game, full of people utterly assured of their own cause. Yet even in this particular world, few can match Chris Huhne for self-belief. He is the British politician to whom the term chutzpah can best be applied.

He may be deeply unpopular with Conservatives, but even members of that party will privately marvel at his apparently unbreakable self-belief. “He’s amazing – nothing ever seems to dent him,” one Tory minister told me recently. Another described him as "bulletproof".

Indeed, if Mr Huhne was worried about his trial before today, he showed no sign. He may have been charged with a serious offence and staring into the political abyss, but no-one who met him in recent months could detect the slightest stress or strain.

To every outward intent, he was a man completely sure of his own inevitable vindication: his resignation from the Cabinet last year was clearly a temporary aberration, an error of history that would soon be corrected, allowing him to resume his work at the top of British politics.

For months, Mr Huhne had been privately adamant that the trial would collapse and he would soon return to frontline politics. As part of the rehabilitation he so confidently expected, he has been working on a number of political projects, including a book about economic crises. It would be entirely out of character for him to abandon such projects, even now.

As for his wider career, well, the conventional wisdom will dictate that it is over. But I’d offer one small caveat here: never underestimate Mr Huhne’s belief in himself. You may believe he’s finished. He won’t.